Quotes about women
page 30

Camille Paglia photo
Alessandro Piccolomini photo

“Women resist in order to be conquered.”

Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–1579) Italian writer and philosopher

Act IV., Scene IV. — (Il Quercivola.)
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 388.
L’Alessandro (1544)

Henry Adams photo

“She regarded men as creatures made for women to dispose of.”

About Madeleine, in Ch. XI
Democracy: An American Novel (1880)

Ela Bhatt photo

“SEWA is now the largest union in India, with a membership of around 1.2 million women.”

Ela Bhatt (1933) founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association of India (SEWA)

Discussion with Ela Bhatt, Founder, Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA)

T. E. Lawrence photo
Maddox photo

“If women ran the world, we'd still be searching for the wheel.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Twenty-six things a perfect guy would do, and other propaganda disseminated by misguided women. http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=26_things
The Best Page in the Universe

Lily Tomlin photo

“I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk…”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Response after being asked how she felt playing a heterosexual in Nashville, on her album Modern Scream (1975)

Henry Campbell-Bannerman photo
Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“I know something about how the first encyclopedias were developed in the 18th century. And those encyclopedias almost completely excluded the history of women. And it’s one argument that we make all the time.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wholf, Tracy (May 18, 2014). "'Wikipedian' editor took on website’s gender gap" http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/. PBS NewsHour (PBS). Retrieved May 19, 2014.

Immortal Technique photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Cyia Batten photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“If men flashed for freedom as women do; they'd be arrested, jailed and placed on the National Sex Offender Registry.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

" Harvey Sweinstein And Hollywood's Hos, https://townhall.com/columnists/ilanamercer/2017/10/20/harvey-weinstein-and-hollywoods-hos-n2397822" Townhall.com, October 20, 2017.
2010s, 2017

Muammar Gaddafi photo

“We will fight in every valley, in every street, in every oasis, and every town. We won't surrender again; we are not women; we will keep fighting.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Audio message broadcast on the pro-Gaddafi Syrian Al Rai TV on 1 September 2011, quoted on Al Jazeera live blog http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/libya http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/09/201191141151339449.html.
Speeches

Honoré de Balzac photo

“The winters are to fashionable women what a campaign once was to the soldiers of the Empire.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Les hivers sont pour les femmes à la mode ce que fut jadis une campagne pour les militaires de l’empire.
La Fausse Maîtresse http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Fausse_Ma%C3%AEtresse (1842), translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, ch. II.

Robert Menzies photo

“In the long run, will our community not be a stronger, better balanced and more intelligent community when the last artificial disabilities imposed upon women by centuries of custom have been removed?”

Robert Menzies (1894–1978) Australian politician, 12th Prime Minister of Australia

Women in War speech, broadcast from Sydney, Australia — February 20, 1942
Wilderness Years (1941-1949)
Source: http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/women_in_war.htm

Louisa May Alcott photo
Laurie Penny photo
Camille Paglia photo
Camille Paglia photo

“A fifty-seven-year-old college professor expressed it this way: "Yes, there's a need for male lib and hardly anyone writes about it the way it really is, though a few make jokes. My gut reaction, which is what you asked for, is that men—the famous male chauvinist pigs who neglect their wives, underpay their women employees, and rule the world—are literally slaves. They're out there picking that cotton, sweating, swearing, taking lashes from the boss, working fifty hours a week to support themselves and the plantation, only then to come back to the house to do another twenty hours a week rinsing dishes, toting trash bags, writing checks, and acting as butlers at the parties. It's true of young husbands and middleaged husbands. Young bachelors may have a nice deal for a couple of years after graduating, but I've forgotten, and I'll never again be young! Old men. Some have it sweet, some have it sour."Man's role—how has it affected my life? At thirty-five, I chose to emphasize family togetherness and income and neglect my profession if necessary. At fifty-seven, I see no reward for time spent with and for the family, in terms of love or appreciation. I see a thousand punishments for neglecting my profession. I'm just tired and have come close to just walking away from it and starting over; just research, publish, teach, administer, play tennis, and travel. Why haven't I? Guilt. And love. And fear of loneliness. How should the man's role in my family change? I really don't know how it can, but I'd like a lot more time to do my thing."”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

In Harness: The Male Condition, pp. 6–7
The Hazards of Being Male (1976)

Michael Shermer photo

“Intimacies between women go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending up in small talk without loss of esteem.”

Part 2, chapter 1 http://books.google.com/books?id=6DPQAAAAMAAJ&q=%22intimacies+between+women+go+backwards+beginning+with+revelations+and+ending+up+in+small+talk+without+loss+of+esteem%22&pg=PA172#v=onepage
The Death of the Heart (1939)

Clement Attlee photo
Glen Cook photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Frederick Douglass photo
Art Buchwald photo
John Calvin photo
Steven Erikson photo
Angela Davis photo
John Barrowman photo

“We need strong, educated women to help us build a better world.”

Nick Drake (poet) (1961) British writer

Ch 6
The Rahotep series, Book 3: Egypt: The Book of Chaos (2011)

Warren Farrell photo
Vilfredo Pareto photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Bell Hooks photo
Andrea Dworkin photo
Jack London photo
Phillips Brooks photo
Jacob M. Appel photo

“I would prefer to believe that a market in fetal organs would empower women to use their reproductive capabilities to their own economic advantage.”

Jacob M. Appel (1973) American author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic

"Are We Ready for a Market in Fetal Organs?," http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-appel/are-we-ready-for-a-market_b_175900.html The Huffington Post (2009-03-17)

Vātsyāyana photo
Tom Cruise photo
Cyrano de Bergerac photo
Robert E. Howard photo
John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan photo

“If we in this movement are going to ask the decent, silent majority of Muslim men - and women - to have the courage to face down the extremist bullies, then we need to have the courage and character to stand shoulder to shoulder with them doing it.”

John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan (1947) British politician

Speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, 28 September 2006. BBC News 28 September 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5388112.stm

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo
Jennifer Shahade photo
Nayla Moawad photo

“In countries like ours, women enter politics in mourning clothes.”

Nayla Moawad (1940) Lebanese first lady, journalist and politician

Cited in: " Lebanese politics 'not a male affair only' http://mg.co.za/article/2005-05-25-lebanese-politics-not-a-male-affair-only " at Mail&Gardian, 25 May 2005.
A reference to the way many female politicians are the widows of male politicians who have been assassinated.

Julia Gillard photo
Lorde photo

“I'm a feminist and the theme of her song is, 'When you're ready come and get it from me.' I'm sick of women being portrayed this way.”

Lorde (1996) New Zealand singer-songwriter

On Selena Gomez' song "Come & Get It"
Blake, Emily (2013-11-07). " Selena Gomez Hits Back At Lorde: 'That's Not Feminism' http://www.mtv.com/news/1717083/selena-gomez-lorde-response/". MTV News (accessed 6 July 2014)

Gail Dines photo

“No anti-porn feminist I know has suggested that there is one image, or even a few, that could lead a non-rapist to rape; the argument, rather, is that taken together, pornographic images create a world that is at best inhospitable to women, and at worst dangerous to their physical and emotional well-being. In an unfair and inaccurate article that is emblematic of how anti-porn feminist work is misrepresented, Daniel Bernardi claims that Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon believed that “watching pornography leads men to rape women.” Neither Dworkin nor MacKinnon “pioneers in developing a radical feminist critique of pornography, saw porn in such simplistic terms. Rather, both argued that porn has a complicated and multilayered effect on male sexuality, and that rape, rather than simply being caused by porn, is a cultural practice that has been woven into the fabric of a male-dominated society. Pornography, they argued, is one important agent of such a society since it so perfectly encodes woman-hating ideology, but to see it as simplistically and unquestionably leading to rape is to ignore how porn operates within the wider context of a society that is brimming with sexist imagery and ideology. If, then, we replace the “Does porn cause rape?” question with more nuanced questions that ask how porn messages shape our reality and our culture, we avoid falling into the images-lead-to-rape discussion. What this reformulation does is highlight the ways that the stories in pornography, by virtue of their consistency and coherence, create a worldview that the user integrates into his reservoir of beliefs that form his ways of understanding, seeing, and interpreting what goes on around him.”

Gail Dines (1958) anti-pornography campaigner

Pornland: How Porn Hijacked Our Sexuality, Ch 5, Page 85, Gail Dines

Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Margaret Mead photo
Pat Condell photo
James Hudson Taylor photo

“China is not to be won for Christ by quiet ease-loving men and women.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 57).

Ernest Flagg photo
David Boaz photo
Sueton photo

“No one was allowed to leave the theatre during his recitals, however pressing the reason. We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with listening and applauding that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear, since the gates were kept barred, or shammed dead and were carried away for burial.”
Cantante eo ne necessaria quidem causa excedere theatro licitum est. Itaque et enixae quaedam in spectaculis dicuntur et multi taedio audendi laudandique clausis oppidorum portis aut furtim desiluisse de muro aut morte simulata funere elati.

Of Nero's public performances in musical competitions.
Source: The Twelve Caesars, Nero, Ch. 23

Prince photo
Gloria Allred photo

“It is exciting and inspiring to see young women stand up and say 'we know that we have rights, and we intend to assert them.”

Gloria Allred (1941) American civil rights lawyer

December 6, 2014, Gloria Allred: The Battle Over Sexual Assault is the ‘Civil Rights Movement of Our Time’, May 15, 2014, Time magazine, Gloria Allred http://time.com/100055/campus-sexual-assault-gloria-allred/,

“All the world's a cage, and all the men and women are merely hamsters”

Tony Vigorito (1950) American writer

Love and Other Pranks (2017)

Tanith Lee photo
Joyce Carol Oates photo
Enoch Powell photo

“The analytical faculty is underdeveloped in women.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

"Odd Man Out", BBC TV profile by Michael Cockerell transmitted on 11 November 1995.
1990s

Dylan Moran photo
Joe Biden photo

“Good morning everyone. This past week we've seen the best and the worst of humanity. The heinous terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, in Iraq and Nigeria. They showed us once again the depths of the terrorist's depravity. And at the same time we saw the world come together in solidarity. Parisians opening their doors to anyone trapped in the street, taxi drivers turning off their meters to get people home safety, people lining up to donate blood. These simple human acts are a powerful reminder that we cannot be broken and in the face of terror we stand as one. In the wake of these terrible events, I understand the anxiety that many Americans feel. I really do. I don't dismiss the fear of a terrorist bomb going off. There's nothing President Obama and I take more seriously though, than keeping the American people safe. In the past few weeks though, we've heard an awful lot of people suggest that the best way to keep America safe is to prevent any Syrian refugee from gaining asylum in the United States. So let's set the record straight how it works for a refugee to get asylum. Refugees face the most rigorous screening of anyone who comes to the United States. First they are finger printed, then they undergo a thorough background check, then they are interviewed by the Department of Homeland Security. And after that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Defense and the Department of State, they all have to sign off on access. And to address the specific terrorism concerns we are talking about now, we've instituted another layer of checks just for Syrian refugees. There is no possibility of being overwhelmed by a flood of refugees landing on our doorstep tomorrow. Right now, refugees wait 18 to 24 months while the screening process is completed. And unlike in Europe, refugees don't set foot in the United States until they are thoroughly vetted. Let's also remember who the vast majority of these refugees are: women, children, orphans, survivors of torture, people desperately in need medical help. To turn them away and say there is no way you can ever get here would play right into the terrorists' hands. We know what ISIL - we know what they hope to accomplish. They flat-out told us. Earlier this year, the top ISIL leader al-Baghdadi revealed the true goal of their attacks. Here's what he said: "Compel the crusaders to actively destroy the gray zone themselves. Muslims in the West will quickly find themselves between one and two choices. Either apostatize or emigrate to the Islamic State and thereby escape persecution." So it's clear. It's clear what ISIL wants. They want to manufacture a clash between civilizations. They want frightened people to think in terms of "us versus them."They want us to turn our backs on Muslims victimized by terrorism. But this gang of thugs peddling a warped ideology, they will never prevail. The world is united in our resolve to end their evil. And the only thing ISIL can do is spread terror in hopes that we will in turn, turn on ourselves. We will betray our ideals and take actions, actions motivated by fear that will drive more recruits into the arms of ISIL. That's how they win. We win by prioritizing our security as we've been doing. Refusing to compromise our fundamental American values: freedom, openness, tolerance. That's who we are. That's how we win. May God continue to bless the United States of America and God bless our troops.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Weekly presidential address http://www.c-span.org/video/?401096-1/weekly-presidential-address (21 November 2015).
2010s

Kent Hovind photo

“God's commandments are not grievous. God put them in the garden, said "You can eat of any tree except that one tree, The Knowledge of Good and Evil." It's real simple, Adam. Enjoy the garden, have lots of kids, and don't learn about evil. […] Parents, don't teach your kids about all the evil things. Don't have drug education classes where you show them, "Hey, this is marijuana. This is how you smoke it. Now don't you do that." Duh. Don't put them in sex ed classes in seventh grade, it's a plumbing class at that time. Don't do that, okay? Let them be ignorant. Let them learn it from mom and dad, not from some heathen, okay? It's real simple Adam. Enjoy the world and have lots of kids and don't learn about evil. Don't learn all that stuff. The Lord said, "Hey, have you eaten off that tree I told you not to eat from?" God is not asking for information. He's asking for a confession. And the man said, "The woman (he passed the buck) whom thou gavest to be with me. Now God, this is really your fault, you know. If you hadn't given her to me I wouldn't have this problem." He said to the woman, "Have you done this?" She said, "Well, the snake that you made…." We still do the same thing, nothing changes, okay? Fear God, keep his commandments. Just like the taking of life is very important in any culture. Murder is serious. Giving life is important. That's why God put certain rules down for reproduction, okay? Follow his rules. "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." Don't even look and lust or you've committed adultery already in your heart. By the way, ladies, that's why it's important how you dress, okay? My daddy always said, "If you're not in business, don't advertise."”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Women should dress in modest apparel. That's what the Bible says, alright.
Creation seminars (2003-2005), The dangers of evolution

William Faulkner photo

“…girls, women, are not interested in romance but only facts.”

Gavin Stevens to Eula Varner Snopes in Ch. 20
The Town (1957)

Alan Sillitoe photo

“You can always rely on a society of equals taking it out on the women.”

Alan Sillitoe (1928–2010) British writer

The Death of William Posters (London: W. H. Allen, 1965), p. 87.

Robert Jordan photo
Philip Roth photo
Sandra Fluke photo
Roger Ebert photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“569. All Women are good; viz. good for something, or good for nothing.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Warren Farrell photo
Margaret Fuller photo
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw photo
John Pilger photo
Colin Wilson photo
George William Russell photo

“I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

You Would Have Understood Me

Lily Tomlin photo
Jane Roberts photo
Keir Hardie photo

“History is one long record of like illustrations. Must our modern civilisation with all its teeming wonders come to a like end? We are reproducing in faithful detail every cause which led to the downfall of the civilisations of other days—Imperialism, taking tribute from conquered races, the accumulation of great fortunes, the development of a population which owns no property, and is always in poverty. Land has gone out of cultivation and physical deterioration is an alarming fact. An so we Socialists say the system which is producing these results must not be allowed to continue. A system which has robbed religion of its saviour, destroyed handicraft, which awards the palm of success to the unscrupulous, corrupts the press, turns pure women on the streetsm and upright men into mean-spirited time-servers, cannot continue. In the end it is bound to work its own overthrow. Socialism with its promise of freedom, its larger hope for humanity, its triumph of peace over war, its binding of the races of the earth into one all-embracing brotherhood, must prevail. Capitalism is the creed of the dying present; socialism throbs with the life of the days that are to be. It has claimed its martyrs in the past, is claiming them now, will claim them still; but what then? Better to "rebel and die in the twenty worlds sooner than bear the yoke of thwarted life."”

Keir Hardie (1856–1915) Scottish socialist and labour leader

Source: From Serfdom to Socialism (1907), p. 103–104

“A young woman can live off the folly of men; a man of any age can live off the folly of women.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Alexandra Kollontai photo
Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet photo

“Men will not commonly steal women that are nothing worth.”

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet (1554–1625) English politician

Bruton v. Morris (1614), Lord Hobart's Rep. 182.

Muhammad photo